British and Foreign Medico-chirurgical Review: Or, Quarterly Journal of ...

REV. XI.-Cancer; its Varieties, their Histology and Diagnosis. By HENRY

ARNOTT, F.R.C.S., Assistant-Surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital, and

Joint Lecturer on Morbid Anatomy in the Medical College. Illustrated

by lithographic and wood engravings by the author from nature.

London, 1872, 8vo, pp. 86

REV. XII.-A Treatise on Hæmophilia, sometimes called the Hereditary

Hæmorrhagic Diathesis. By J. WICKHAM LEGG, M.D., Casualty Phy-

sician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. London, 1872

REV. XIII.—1. Louise Lateau, the Ecstatica of Bois d'Haine.

FEBVRE. Translated by J. S. SHEPARD. London, 1872

2. Voix Prophétiques. Par M. L'ABBÉ CURICQUE. 2 vols.

Bibliographical Record.

ART. I.-Anleitung zur Untersuchung des Harnes, mit besonderer Berück-

sichtigung der Erkrankungen des Harn-Apparatus. Von Dr. ROBERT

ULTZMANN, Em. Assistant der Pathol. Chemie in Wien, unter

Mitwirkungs von Dr. KARL BERTHOLD HOFMANN, Docent an der

K. K. Universität in Wien. Vienna, 1871. Pp. 133

. 155

ART. II. Qualitative Chemical Analysis. By Dr. C. R. FRESENIUS. Eighth

Edition, translated from the Thirteenth German Edition, by A. VAcher.

Pp. xv and 400. London, 1872

ART. 111.—The Elements of Inorganic Chemistry. By J. C. BUCKMASTER,

revised by G. JARMAIN. Eighth Edition. Pp. 346. London, 1870

ART. IV.—Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts. Edited by R. V. TUSON,

Pp. 1201. London, 1872

ART. V.—Botany for Beginners: an Introduction to the Study of Plants.

By MAXWELL T. MASTERS, M.D., F.R.S. London, 1872

ART. VI.-Dr. Pereira's Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics;

abridged and adapted for the use of Medical and Pharmaceutical Prac-

titioners and Students. Edited by ROBERT BENTLEY, F.L.S., and

THEOPHILUS REDWOOD, Ph.D., F.C.S., &c. London, 1872. Pp.

1093

ART. VII.-On Diet and Regimen in Sickness and Health, and on the

Interdependence and Prevention of Diseases and the Diminution of

their Fatality. By HORACE DOBELL, M.D. Fifth and revised Edition.

London, 1872

ART. VIII.-Oppolzer's Vorlesungen über Specielle Pathologie und Therapie

Zweite Band. Erste Lieferung. Erlangen, 1872

ART. IX.-The Science and Practice of Medicine. By WILLIAM AITKEN,

M.D. Sixth edition, greatly enlarged, remodelled, carefully revised

and many portions rewritten. In two volumes, with illustrations.

London, 1872

ART. X.-Nouveau Dictionnaire de Médecine et de Chirurgie Pratiques.

Illustré de figures intercalées dans la texte. Tome xv, Fot.-Génér.

Paris, 1872. Pp. 785

ART. XI.-On Croup and Diphtheria. By ROBERT HUNTER SEMPLE, M.D.,

M.R.C.P. Lond., Physician to the Hospital for Diseases of the Throat.

Reprinted from the Transactions of the St. Andrew's Medical Gra-

duates' Association.' London, 1872

PAGE

157

ib.

158

159

ib.

160

161

162

. 164

ART. XII.-Outlines of Surgery and Surgical Pathology, including the

Diagnosis and Treatment of Obscure and Urgent Cases, and the

Surgical Anatomy of some Important Structures and Regions. By F.

LE GROS CLARK, F.R.S., Senior Surgeon of St. Thomas's Hospital.

Second Edition, revised and expanded by the Author, assisted by

W. W. WAGSTAFFE, F.R.C.S., Resident Assistant-Surgeon to, and

Joint-Lecturer on Anatomy at, St. Thomas's Hospital. London, 1872.

Pp. 350

ART. XIII.—A Treatise on the Diseases of Infancy and Childhood. By J.

LEWIS SMITH, M.D. Second Edition, enlarged and thoroughly revised.

Philadelphia, 1872

ART. XIV.-The Pathology, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Diseases of Women.

By GRAILY HEWITT, M.D., F.R.C.P., &c. Third Edition, revised and

enlarged

ART. XV.-Des Grossesses Extra-Uterines et plus Specialement de leur Traite-

ment par la Gastrotomie, &c. Par THEOdore Keller, Docteur en

Médecine. Paris, 1872. Pp. 94

ART. XVI.-A Manual for Hospital Nurses and others engaged in attending

on the Sick. By EDWARD J. DOMVILLE. London, 1872

ABT. XVII. The Affinity of the Hebrew Language with the Celtic. By THO-

MAS STRATTON, M.D., &c. Edinburgh, 1872

ART. XVIII.-Description of the O'Neal Family. London, 8vo, 1872

ABT. XIX.-Note sur le Développement de la Peste Bubonique dans le

Kurdistan en 1871. Par le Docteur THOLOZAN

Note on the Development of the Boil-plague in Kurdistan in 1871. ib.

ART. XX.-A Treatise on Human Physiology; designed for the use of Students

and Practitioners of Medicine. By JOHN C. DALTON, M.D., &c. Fifth

edition, revised and enlarged. With 284 Illustrations. Philadelphia,

1871, H. C. LEE. London, TRUBNER and Co. Pp. 728.

PAGE

ART. XXI.-Report of the Boston City Hospital

. 177

Original Communications.

ART. I.-Observations on Smallpox. By ALEX. OGSTON, M.D. Aberdeen

ART. II.-The Public Health Aspects of the Adulteration of Food Act and

the Mines Regulation Acts. By HENRY W. RUMSEY, M.D.

ART. III.-Tabular Report and Remarks on Two Hundred Cases of Extraction

of Cataract by Graefe's Modified Linear Section. By DAVID LITTLE,

M.D., Surgeon to the Royal Eye Hospital, Manchester

ART. IV. The Morphology of Vaccine Lymph. By P. M. BRAIDWOOD,

Chronicle of Medical Science.

(CHIEFLY FOREIGN AND CONTEMPORARY.)

Report on Obstetrics, Gynecology, and the Diseases of Children. By W. S.

PLAYFAIR, M.D., F.R.C.P., Professor of Obstetric Medicine in King's

College, Physician for the Diseases of Women and Children to King's

College Hospital, Examiner in Midwifery, &c., to the Royal College

of Physicians

Report on Toxicology, Forensic Medicine, and Hygiene. By BENJAMIN W.

RICHARDSON, M.D., F.R.S.

Report on Surgery. By HENRY A. REEVES

NOTE TO A RECLAMATION BY DR. THOMAS HAYDEN

BOOKS RECEIVED FOR REVIEW

THE

BRITISH AND FOREIGN

MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL REVIEW.

JANUARY, 1873.

Analytical and Critical Reviews.

I. The Public Health Act, 1872.

THE statutory result of recent discussions on sanitary legislation is wholly incommensurate with the zeal and ability displayed by the controversialists. Foregone conclusions have been accepted instead of inductions from facts; and facts have been recklessly denied, because there has been no thorough sifting of statements. On either side of this controversy a large scheme has been rejected because a part of it was open to question, and an instalment has been declined because it was an incomplete measure.

Our last article on the subject (January, 1872) was written in a hopeful strain. Mr. Stansfeld's Bill had not then appeared. We had some reason to suppose that, uncommitted as he was to any official project, his acute and independent though somewhat crotchetty mind might have discarded the fundamental errors which we pointed out in the scheme of the Sanitary Commission, and in Sir C. B. Adderley's Bill founded thereon; and we hoped that the Government measure, however limited in scope, would have enacted nothing to impede more precise and comprehensive legislation hereafter. For it would be absurd to expect that a single act, or even several acts in a single session, could meet all the requirements of a complete code of public health; and it must be confessed that Mr. Stansfeld's original measure, imperfect as it confessedly was, showed an advance, a decided amendment, upon that of the Chairman of the Royal Commission, as regards local authorities. For it did not, as that did, propose to perpetuate all the small and troublesome areas of representative management which have been so unwisely created under former sanitary acts. The "Special Drainage Districts," each governed by its petty elective board, are now to be dissolved, absorbed in larger districts, and converted into

101-LI.

"contributory places." This is as it should be. If the same bold sweep had been made of half the local board districts, the benefit to social progress and to the public health would probably have been doubled.

Nearly a fourth of the existing local board districts contain less than 3000 inhabitants. Scarcely more than a fourth contain 10,000 and upwards. Yet the weight of evidence before the Commission went to show that no place with a population of less than 10,000 or 12,000 ought to be isolated from the general management of the country for the purpose of separate health administration. Mr. Thring, the eminent counsel at the Home Office, whose knowledge of sanitary law was probably greater than that of any member of the Commission, and whose authoritative statements and forcible arguments in favour of county sanitary administration were lost upon the prejudiced minds to whom they were addressed, advised (358-9) that only very large towns (100,000 or 200,000 population) would require special legislation; and again (378), that a town with 200,000 or 300,000 inhabitants might be treated as a county. These important recommendations were made nearly four years ago. How little fruit have they borne! How long and apparently hopeless the task of educating the legislative mind!

One remarkable fallacy in the work of the Commission has been their assumption that every small body, constituted for local government, must be empowered to execute, not only the common functions of keeping order and promoting decency and cleanliness, but also the higher functions of sanitary administration. Here, as elsewhere-latet dolus in generalibus. The inefficiency of the smaller local boards having been proved, Mr. Stansfeld at first proposed to take power to dissolve districts with less than 3000 population in default of duty. He would have done more wisely if, without actually dissolving the lesser local governments, he had included them all by representation in a County Board, or at least in a Council managing an entire Registration District. Incapable, as it appears, of appreciating the difference between ordinary local government and sanitary local management, he has retained unlimited power to form for sanitary purposes, districts without restriction as to size, and local boards without regard to competency. On the whole, it is clear that, while the new Act favours the multiplication of these minute and often mischievous urban isolations of authority, it contains no adequate powers to merge them, for health objects, in wider and more suitable districts.

Another strange error in this new constitution of local sanitary authorities is, that no provision has been made for the combination, or at least compulsory co-operation, of the esta

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British and Foreign Medico-chirurgical Review: Or, Quarterly ..., Volume 51